Paying Customers are the Enemy

BD+ is being rushed out to titles only shortly after the spec was finalized, partly in response to hackers cracking the protection on AACS earlier this year. This wouldn’t be the first time that extra layers of copy protection have harmed legitimate consumers: earlier this year Sony had to recall 20 DVD titles protected with ARccOS that caused problems on some DVD players.

When Paramount recently announced that they were switching to HD DVD releases, one of the reasons a spokesperson gave Ars was that the Blu-ray spec was not “market-ready.” Perhaps this is the sort of thing he meant.

Fox’s position is that the problem is entirely the fault of the player manufacturers. Steve Feldstein, Fox senior VP of marketing communications, told Video Business that “consumers should lobby their hardware manufacturers to release firmware upgrades post haste” and that “the title was well-reviewed and playing well on updated players.”

Isn’t that charming? It’s worth keeping in mind that only the legitimate customers have to jump through these kinds of hoops. If you’re stupid enough to follow the rules and pay hard-earned cash for your movies, Hollywood rewards you by making you spend a relaxing evening learning how to update your movie player’s firmware. People who break the law and get their movies via a P2P network don’t have to worry about these sorts of headaches, as those files tend to come pre-cracked and in an open format playable on any device.